Shadow Command

that negative energy only keeps their heads down.”

“It’s not negative energy, Seeker, whatever that is,” Boomer said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s that TV picture — it’s killing me.” Hunter rubbed his eyes. They were staring at a wide-screen high-definition image of a suburban section of the southeast side of Tehran, in what used to be called the Islamic Republic of Iran but was now referred to by many in the world as the Democratic Republic of Persia. The image, shot from a telescopic electro-optical camera mounted aboard a U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft orbiting at sixty thousand feet above the city, was fairly steady, but every shake, no matter how occasional, felt like another pinch of sand thrown into Boomer’s eyes.

The two were not sitting at a console in a normal terrestrial combat control center, but in the main battle management module of Armstrong Space Station, positioned two hundred and seventy-five miles above Earth in a forty-seven-degree inclination easterly orbit. Noble and Lukas were among four additional personnel brought aboard to run the U.S. Air Force’s Air Battle Force monitoring and command mission over the Democratic Republic of Persia. Although Boomer was a space veteran with several dozen orbital flights and even a spacewalk to his credit, floating in zero-G staring at a monitor was not what he joined the Air Force for. “How much longer are we on station?”

“Just five more hours, sir,” Lukas said, smiling and shaking her head in mock disbelief when Noble groaned at her reply. Seeker was an eighteen-year U.S. Air Force veteran, but she still looked barely older than she did the day she enlisted in January 1991 when Operation Desert Storm kicked off, and she loved her profession just as much now as she did back then. The images of laser- and TV-guided bombs flying through windows and down ventilator shafts fascinated and excited her, and she started basic training two days after graduating from high school. She joined every high-tech optronic sensor school and course she could find, quickly becoming an all-around expert at remote sensing and targeting systems. “Besides the power plant, environmental, and electronic systems, the most important systems in strategic reconnaissance are patience and an iron butt.”

“I’d rather be out there flying myself,” Boomer said petulantly, readjusting himself yet again on his attachment spot on the bulkhead in front of the large monitor. He was a little taller than the average American astronaut that most of the instruments on the space station were obviously designed for, so he found almost everything on the station just enough of the wrong size, height, or orientation to irk him. Although the twenty-five- year-old test pilot, engineer, and astronaut was a space veteran, most of his time in space had been spent strapped into a nice secure spaceplane seat at the controls, not floating around in zero-G. “All this remote-control stuff is for the birds.”

“You calling me a ‘bird,’ sir?” she asked with mock disapproval.

“I’m not calling anyone anything, Master Sergeant — I’m giving this particular procedure my own personal opinion,” Boomer said. He motioned to the screen. “The picture is really good, but it’s the radar aiming thingy that’s driving me nuts.”

“That’s the SAR aiming reticle, sir,” Seeker said. “It’s slaved to the synthetic aperture radar and highlights any large vehicle or device that appears in the sensor field of view that matches our search parameters. If we didn’t have it, we’d have to manually scan every vehicle in the city—that would really drive you nuts.”

“I know what it is, Master Sergeant,” Boomer said, “but can’t you make it stop darting and flitting and shaking around the screen so much?” The monitor showed a rectangular box that appeared and disappeared frequently in the scene. When it appeared, the box surrounded a vehicle, adjusted its size to match the vehicle, and then if it matched the preprogrammed size parameters, a tone would sound and the camera would zoom in so the humans could see what the computers had found. But it would only stay focused on one vehicle for five seconds before starting the wide-area scan again, so Boomer and Seeker had to almost constantly watch the screen and be prepared to hit the HOLD button to study the image before the computer jumped out again. “It’s giving me a damned headache.”

“I think it’s incredible it’s doing what it’s doing, sir,” Seeker said, “and I’m more than willing to put up with a few jiggles if it helps us spot a—” And at that moment the computer locked onto another vehicle, which had just appeared atop a parking structure beside a cluster of apartment buildings. Seeker slapped the HOLD button a second later. “Hey, we got one!” she shouted. “It’s a Katyusha…no, I think it’s a Ra’ad rocket! We got them setting up a Ra’ad!”

“You’re mine, suckers,” Boomer said, instantly forgetting all about his purported headache. He glanced at the monitor, but he was already busy making sure the target coordinates obtained by the Global Hawk were being uploaded properly. The live image was incredibly detailed. They watched as four men carried a large rocket, resembling a large artillery shell with fins, out of the parking garage to the back of a Toyota pickup truck — it must’ve been very heavy, because it appeared they were having difficulty carrying it. The pickup had a large steel skeletal pedestal mounted in the pickup frame, with a circular cradle atop it. The men rested the rocket on the back of the truck, then two of them hopped up and they began struggling to lift the rocket up to the launcher.

“Don’t drop it, boys,” Seeker said. “You wouldn’t want to spoil our fun, would you?” She turned to Boomer. “How much longer, sir?”

“Target coordinates uploaded,” Boomer said. “Counting down now. How long do we have?”

“Once they get it up into the launcher, it could be fired in less than a minute.”

Boomer glanced up and watched the monitor. Several children ran up to the truck to watch the terrorists at work — at first they were shooed away, but after a few moments they were allowed to get a closer look. “Looks like ‘Career Day’ is on in Tehran,” he said gloomily.

“Get out of there, kids,” Seeker murmured. “It’s not safe for you there.”

“Not because of us,” Boomer said coldly. He hit a transmitter button on his console. “Ripper to Genesis.”

“I’m right here, Boomer,” responded Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan, “standing” on the bulkhead behind Boomer and looking over his shoulder. The twenty-one-year Air Force veteran and three-star general was the commanding officer at Elliott Air Force Base, Groom Lake, Nevada, the home of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC. HAWC developed the XR-A9 Black Stallion spaceplane, along with countless other air weapons and aircraft, but it was leaders like Patrick McLanahan who saw the capabilities and possibilities of those experimental devices and brought them to bear in crisis situations where America or her allies would otherwise suffer tremendous losses or even defeat. Short, husky but not large, with disarming blue eyes and a quick smile, Patrick McLanahan did not at all resemble the hard-charging, determined, audacious globe-crossing aerial bombardment expert and master tactician portrayed by his reputation. Like Boomer and Seeker, McLanahan was becoming a veteran astronaut — this was his third trip to Armstrong Space Station in as many months.

“We’ve got a good one, sir,” Boomer said, nodding at his monitor. “Not a little homemade Qassam or Katyusha this time, either.” Boomer studied the young three-star Air Force general’s face carefully, noticing his eyes flicking back and forth across his monitor — not just looking at the rocket, Boomer thought, but at the kids clustered around the makeshift terror weapon launcher. “The master sergeant thinks it’s a Ra’ad rocket.”

It appeared as if Patrick hadn’t heard him, but a few moments later he nodded excitedly. “I agree, Seeker,” he said. “A Hezbollah weapon, based on a Russian battalion-level battlefield attack missile. Two-hundred-pound warhead, simple but usually effective barometric fuse, airburst with a backup impact detonation, killing radius a hundred yards or more, usually loaded up with glass, ball bearings, and pieces of metal along with high explosives to increase the injury toll. A real terror weapon.” He shook his head. “But there are too many civilians around. Our ROE says no noncombatant casualties and minimal collateral damage. Pick a different target, Boomer, one with fewer bystanders. There will be plenty of opportunities…”

“We don’t see many Ra’ad rockets, sir,” Seeker said. “That’s not a homemade rocket — that’s a military- grade short-range ballistic attack missile.”

“I know, Master Sergeant, but our orders are specific and—” At that moment the insurgents shooed the children away again, more forcefully this time, as another insurgent fitted ignition wires to the tail end of the rocket in final preparation for launch. “Now,” Patrick snapped. “Take it down.”

“Yes, sir,” Boomer said enthusiastically. He issued commands on his computer, checked the computer’s responses, then nodded. “Here we go…missile counting down…doors coming open…ready…ready…now, missile away.” He checked a countdown timer. “Don’t anyone blink, ’cuz this won’t take long.”

Over the Caspian Sea two hundred and twenty miles north of Tehran, an unmanned EB-1D Vampire bomber opened its combined forward and center bomb bay doors and released a single large missile. The D-model Vampire